Interesting Dark Match Results From Last Night's WWE SmackDown
WWE tweaked an NXT act for SmackDown consumption before Friday's broadcast.
WWE ran two dark matches before shooting last night's episode of SmackDown.
Both bouts featured NXT stars, and the results were...interesting to say the least. First up, former NXT Women's Champion Raquel Gonzalez beat Toni Storm; the intriguing thing here is that Toni has only just arrived on the "main roster" herself.
It's hardly a promising sign for her to lose, but WWE must've wanted to give Raquel a soft try out (if one could even call it that) and see what she's capable of in front of SmackDown's bigger audiences. Could a call up be imminent after she dropped the NXT Title to Mandy Rose at Halloween Havoc?
The other dark bout was a tag-team match pitting The Viking Raiders vs. The Creed Brothers. Erik and Ivar won the match, but that's not the eye-catching note here. No, the biggest takeaway from this one is that Malcolm Bivens didn't accompany Brutus and Julius to ringside for their biggest WWE showing to date.
Whilst the manager was absent, The Creed Bros did use Diamond Mine's entrance music and tron. WWE may have been testing out a manager-less duo, which is worrying for Bivens.